At the risk of hastily jumping to conclusions, I think it’s fair to say a sizable number of Aussies are enjoying Baz Luhrmann’s Australia, while Yank audiences are less enamoured.
The historical drama/romance rang up nearly $1.4 million here on Wednesday and about $1.2 million yesterday: a strong but not stellar start for the much-hyped movie.
Especially considering the $200 million epic seems to appeal chiefly to women aged 30 plus and middle-aged folk, who are not inclined to rush to cinemas in the first few days, unlike fans of say, The Dark Knight, Bond and Harry Potter.
Those figures suggest the film will end up making about $25 million in Oz, a very good result for any Australian movie, but not the blockbuster Baz and Fox were hoping for.
In the US, the Hugh Jackman/Nicole Kidman adventure fetched $2.5 million on around 2,600 screens on Wednesday- a distant No. 7 behind Twilight, the new Reese Witherspoon/Vince Vaughn comedy Four Holidays, Bolt, Quantum of Solace, Jason Statham’s Transporter 3 and Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa.
That indicates Australia is on course to make about $18 million over the 5-day Thanksgiving holiday, at the low end of most pundits’ predictions, versus roughly $45 million for Twilight and $35 million for Four Holidays.
Fox will be hoping word-of-mouth keeps Australia on screen and earning money in the coming weeks as a bundle of new releases enter both markets.
Otherwise, as one US writer put it, the movie could go down as a low-grossing “Far and Away with Vegemite.”
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Lots of Aussies love Baz’s Australia; Yanks not so much
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